That’s because the Senate Rules Committee, which is considering nominations of two Democrats and two Republicans to the six-seat Federal Election Commission, is expected to pay particular attention to the increasingly controversial background of one nominee: Hans von Spakovsky.

For four years before he was given a temporary appointment to the FEC, von Spakovsky, a Republican, worked as a top lawyer in the Justice Department’s voting section. In that capacity, he advocated for voter-identification and redistricting plans that critics allege put partisanship ahead of the Voting Rights Act he was charged with enforcing.

That makes him a prime target for Democrats, who have stoked the controversy over politicization of the Justice Department – and have continued clamoring for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“Serious concerns have been raised about Mr. von Spakovsky’s actions while with the Justice Department,” said Howard Gantman, the committee’s Democratic staff director. “At our hearing, we expect to have him address some of these issues.”

Von Spakovsky led efforts at the department to approve a congressional redistricting plan in Texas that the U.S. Supreme Court found discriminated against Latino voters and a law in his native Georgia requiring voters to show photo identification before casting their ballots. That discriminated against black voters, who were less likely to have such ID, according to career Justice Department attorneys, who were overruled by von Spakovsky and other higher-ranking Justice officials.

Media reports last month also alleged von Spakovsky pressured state and federal officials to play down concerns about minority voting access, and to take stances that made it more difficult for certain minorities to vote.

“This person is Exhibit A for vote suppression activities,” said J. Gerald Hebert, who worked for two decades in the Justice Department’s voting section before von Spakovsky’s tenure. Hebert is executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for stricter election and ethics rules. This week, he wrote to Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah), the chairwoman and ranking minority member, respectively, of the Rules Committee, urging them to reject von Spakovsky’s nomination because of his work at Justice.

“To put somebody with his background on the Federal Election Commission is a perversion,” Hebert said in an interview.

Feinstein, Bennett and von Spakovsky did not respond to requests for comment. But Bob Bauer, an influential Democratic election lawyer who has criticized some of the policies von Spakovsky backed at Justice, said senators shouldn’t focus on the nominee’s record at his previous job.

“What is tricky here,” Bauer wrote in a blog posting responding to Hebert’s letter, “is that a disagreement on law and policy at DOJ, profound as it may be, seems distant from the question at hand, which is von Spakovsky’s qualifications for the FEC.”

Von Spakovsky and the two Democratic commissioners up for confirmation – Robert Lenhard and Steven Walther – have voted on a number of contentious campaign finance issues since being appointed to the commission in Jan. 2006, while Congress was in recess.

Republican David Mason, the other nominee set to appear before the committee, has been on the commission since 1998, though his previous term expired in 2003.

The FEC’s makeup is important because in the coming months, it could consider a number of issues with a potentially significant impact on the 2008 elections, including whether candidates can split the cost of ads with party committees.

But advocates of campaign finance reform, including Hebert’s group, have blasted the commission for failing to aggressively implement and enforce campaign finance rules.

Part of the problem, Hebert contends, is the structure of the commission, which he called “a system that’s built to deadlock.”

The commission by statute consists of three appointees from each party, though it has one vacant Republican seat.

In the past, commissioners have been approved in pairs – one from each party – which has muted partisan concerns. And the smart money is on that happening again this time, said a person close to the committee.